Getting to grips with my Letraset markers

Today I thought I would spent a bit more time getting to know my lovely marker pens. At first they are a bit daunting, as the line seems to come out really hard, even with the paler colours. I thought I had a good range of colours, but it turns out I don’t: I am missing paler shades of colours such as red, which meant I was a bit limited in the colours I could use today, so I had to choose the colours I had at least 4 shades of, purple, grey and blue.

The marker pens come with a ‘blender’ pen, which helps blend the colours together, but to be honest, I think it makes the page look wet, but I guess that’s because I haven’t worked out how to use it properly yet… any tips? When I was colouring the chairs in the picture below I started with the lightest colour, all over the image,and then gradually built up to the darkest colour. Having the light colour as the base helped the other shades to blend naturally with out giving the wet look of the blender pen. I am a bit disappointed with the purple chair, as it looks a bit wonky… but I am pleased with the grey chair, that turned out rather well!!

At the moment, I think I still prefer colouring with pencils, as you get a softer finish and can build up the colour much more gradually, but hopefully after a bit more practice I will feel more confident… we’ll see!!